As mass production has to be accompanied by mass consumption; mass consumption, in turn, implies a distribution of wealth -- not of existing wealth, but of wealth as it is currently produced -- to provide men with buying power equal to the amount of goods and services offered by the nation's economic machinery.-- Marriner Eccles

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.-- Neil deGrasse Tyson/2015 (possibly earlier)

There is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big corporations are happy, they're going to take the money they're saving and reinvest it in American workers. In fact they bought back shares, a few gave out bonuses; there's no evidence whatsoever that they[sic] money's been massively poured back into the American worker.-- Marco Rubio (darling of the Right)/2018

15 March 2013

Rope a Dope [update]

For those who can't be bothered to engage in word play, the previous post's title was a lexical meta-syllogism equivalent to today's. And today, I'm happy to report that those reporting on the ground, in Vatican City and Buenos Aires, confirm the conclusion.

The choice of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pope was so surprising, the Italian bishops sent out an e-mail congratulating the wrong man.

Dewey and Truman? Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe? A roar comes from the crowd! The forward leaning Americans and Europeans were told to go shove it.

... the Vatican-based cardinals protective of their bureaucracy snubbed the presumptive front-runner, and a favored candidate of reformers, Cardinal Angelo Scola.

Reform? More like repression.

Cardinal Scola went into the conclave with a solid block of votes, including many of the Americans and Europeans, who saw in him an Italian who was nevertheless at a distance from the intrigues of the Vatican. But it quickly became apparent this was not going to be enough, particularly given what news reports said was the opposition of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the powerful secretary of state under Benedict.

Cardinal Bergoglio's age may have cut both ways, said Mr. Ingrao, the Vatican expert for Panorama. Reformers may have believed it would motivate him to act quickly, while cardinals favoring the status quo may have hoped his papacy would be too short to effect much change.

There remains the conspiracy theory that John Paul I was offed by the Vatican Mafia just because he wanted to bring the church into the modern world. Franky best watch his step, if he's been a liberal in wolf's clothing all this time.

One of the most biting reactions to Francis came in a statement from the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the association of women whose children were disappeared during Argentina's military dictatorship, from 1976 to 1983. The group contrasted Francis, who has long been criticized for not confronting the dictatorship, with the 150 or so other priests who were killed during the so-called Dirty War.

"About this pope they named, we have only to say, 'Amen,' " Hebe de Bonafini, the group's president and a longstanding critic of the incoming pope, said in a statement steeped in irony.